As I mentioned earlier I have been busy, I still am but now looking at my next steps and that will most likely result in some employment arrangement within an organisation. I have just started this journey but I do need to find something for March 2013.
I have spent a little time looking over my LinkedIn contacts and a few quick searches on jobs boards, reached out to a couple of contacts and even contacted a recruiter or two. Already a few of things have jumped out at me:
- Most recruiters have not changed, while I have only had contact with a limited selection but I believe not much has changed. That is sad.
- Seek is still top.
- There a “truck loads” of IT jobs. (Most are not me.)
- There are very little strategic HR Technology roles (I have had job alerts in place for 4 years and no change).
- I have no idea what type of organisation I want to join.
- I have several ideas on what type of role I would like, but given my background they vary from software pre-sales to HCM consulting to IT management.
An idea occurred to me today. I might document my process of finding employment in 2013. It might be interesting. It also could be boring, also it might not be a new idea (it probably isn’t, well I know it isn’t but Ellison has some ideas about what she wanted).
What I do think will be interesting is I have a five thousand followers on Twitter, close to 700 LinkedIn connections, a blog (this one) that at one point had over 25K unique visitors a month, I have spoken many times in the last 5 year, run conferences and traveled the world combining HR and technology.
So it should not be that hard to find something that will excite me. Or will it?
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Well normally I just nod my head and agree with your posts but today I am actually going to disagree with some of your statements as it may be that things have changed but the way you are looking at it hasn’t. First of all however I am going to state very clearly that I sell Talent Management software and my comments aren’t about self promotion or advertorial analysis. Simply I just want to point out some trends which I see happening working in this area which is significant not only for me as a software re-seller but generally in the Australian culture and looking at it from an HR context.
So here we go:
First point “Most recruiters have not changed, while I have only had contact with a limited selection but I believe not much has changed”
Disagree – while the bigger recruiters/recruitment companies may not have changed and they still hold the majority of the advertised roles, etc a larger proportion of individual recruiters have changed the way they do business. A large number of the specialist recruiters now do not use job boards and if they do they use specialised boards and not the major ones. They are very focused on their market and do not cast a wide net any more. Also they are prolific in using social media, talent pools and relationships. These guys understand that the market has changed and relationships are the key. The newer generations require you to go and find them and will not look for work on job boards knowing the poor response from recruiters with still 80% of applications going unacknowledged through job boards. So things have changed but it is still very much underground rather than overt.
Second point ”Seek is still top”. Yes agree as far as job boards go but as mentioned above generalised job boards will slowly become redundant as the market shifts. This may slow as unemployment increases but as far as I see there is a growing trend for smaller targeted job boards than the big bang approach with filters. Recruitment is changing and the stats that I am seeing is that it is actually about 50/50 now between job boards and relational marketing including a growing trend of social media via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other tools..
Third point “There are a “truck loads” of IT jobs. Yes agree but you need to look at why. Two trends happening which are almost in conflict. Companies are in sourcing IT more than outsourcing to try and reduce costs but at the same time we are seeing the traditional mix of core employees and casuals change to a higher mix of a contingent workforce and a small core of permanent workforce moving to a more agile resource capability with more multi skilled and flexible work arrangements.
Fourth point “There are very little strategic HR Technology roles (I have had job alerts in place for 4 years and no change).” Don’t agree. I am seeing companies becoming very strategic in using HR technology but they are not advertised roles or they have been given to IT to look after. What I see however is that the age old problem and that is HR want solutions not software and don’t have any budget or time to commit to strategic technology and so look to vendors and IT to fix things quickly and cheaply. I have turned away several offers (All by head hunters) to take up positions in these roles to pursue selling software. I think again you are looking in the wrong area as more of it is in sourced rather than advertised. Your blog telling people you are looking may see a change to this observation.
Anyway my thoughts on your points but interested in hearing if others see it different. Always ready to learn as I may be an old dog but willing to learn something new and be challenged by others.
Thanks for this post…………….. I agree with your views for related to HR. There are very little strategic HR Technology roles (I have had job alerts in place for 4 years and no change).” Don’t agree. I am seeing companies becoming very strategic in using HR technology but they are not advertised roles or they have been given to IT to look after. What I see however is that the age old problem and that is HR want solutions not software and don’t have any budget or time to commit to strategic technology and so look to vendors and IT to fix things quickly and cheaply.
Human Resources Consulting